New York City Kills Parking Meter Privatization Deal

A New York City Muni-Meter. Photo courtesy and copyright DNAinfo/Ben Fractenberg

Blame it on Chicago.

New York City has opted not to move forward with plans to privatize the city’s more than 85,000 metered parking spaces and Chicago is at least partially responsible according to the Wall Street Journal .

New York is just the most recent of many large U.S. cities that considered privatizing their parking meters but backed off. This list also includes Pittsburgh and Los Angeles. The WSJ blamed this inability for cities to consummate these privatization deals on the failure of Chicago’s meter lease deal and subsequent public backlash.

Instead of moving ahead with privatization, the Bloomberg administration has decided to initiate a modernization of its parking meters later in 2013.